


Trust Issues

by orphan_account



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4795004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But the worst part of it all, Chloe thought, the one thing she hated more than the feeling of all that pent up resentment bubbling inside the depths of her stomach – was how she was so pathetically willing to let them back into her life with arms open wide as can be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing fic in who knows how many years. Thanks for the inspiration, Arcadia Gays.
> 
> If anything about it is crummy, please do me the favor of letting me know how to best fix that. I'm looking to improve. (And to please - so any and all requests will certainly be taken into consideration.) 
> 
> Might be multi-chapter. We'll see how it goes.

People are easy to figure out. They come into your life when you have something to offer them, they pretend to care for you as long as they feel like it’s worth the effort, and then they get up and they leave. That’s just the way it is; it’s practically an unwritten rule of the human being, and there are absolutely _no_ exceptions. A lot of people seem to delude themselves into thinking there are some magical good people in this world who don’t abide by that law, usually when they find themselves with that _one very special person_ – or whatever - but in time, they’ll figure out just how wrong they are. It only takes time.

Now, this way of thinking isn’t just some bullshit philosophizing, it’s a fact, founded and proven by one Miss Chloe Price. She’s been picked up and dropped by the most important people in her life more times than any regular person could stand. In fact, she’s not quite sure how she’s even stood it herself. Dumb luck? Stubbornness? Lots of drugs? Maybe all of the above.

But really, for her, it’s just a pattern at this point - her father, her best friend, her girlfriend, all the same.  Hi, I’m here, I’ll light up your world! Bye, I’m gone, see ya never! Just like that, one, two, _three_ times in a row.

It’s not an easy feat for Chloe to be able to put her trust in someone else, but when she does manage to, that person receives a gift rarer than they could ever imagine. If Chloe trusts someone, there's no doubt that that person is her world. Hell, more than that, she’d give up her entire world _for_ them. The love you have to hold for someone to feel that way about them is an incredible feeling, unlike anything else in the universe - but it really, _really_ sucks when someone else's feelings are fractions as intense as yours are. For Chloe, it’s been made perfectly obvious that the people she cares about care far less... Because if they cared as much as she did; even half as much, they wouldn’t have left her in the first place, right?

Yeah, yeah, she’s heard it a thousand times before, through the quivering lips of her exhausted mother.

“William didn’t _choose_ to leave us, Chloe,” she’d chide, brows furrowed tightly in hopes that it’d prevent her from bursting into tears right then and there.  “And you know that.”

Oh yeah, she knew _something_ , and it was that her dad made the choice to step out of that door that day, to step into the car and go out to get groceries, and to leave her life forever.

Just like that stupid, traitorous, shit excuse of a best friend Max Caulfield made the choice to haul her ass out of Arcadia Bay and never come back. No, not only did she never come back, but she chose to go a full five goddamn years without even an attempt at pretending to care. Chloe hadn’t received a single letter, nor a text, nor a call from the person she treasured most in the world - not a peep in five long, lonely years.

And even Rachel; charming, heart-stoppingly beautiful Rachel, the one person she thought she could finally trust after all this time; after all of this heartbreak, all of these betrayals – was no better than the rest of them.

So, honestly, who could blame Chloe for thinking everyone was the same way? She had learned perfectly well to give up any hope on putting trust into another human being. People were shit, they always would be shit, and the only person she’d ever be able to rely on was herself.

But the worst part of it all, she thought, the one thing she hated more than the feeling of all that pent up resentment bubbling inside the depths of her stomach; all of those those hateful thoughts about those traitors, those liars, those fakers– was how she was so pathetically willing to let them back into her life with arms open wide as can be. The worst part of it all was how she felt like a pathetic little puppy dog, rolling over onto her back and wagging her tail the very instant Maxine Caulfield set her foot back into the shithole that was Arcadia Bay. She despised it, but she just couldn't help it.

The reason feeling that way about Max of all people was particularly terrible was because Max should be the one that Chloe hates the most. William – _Dad_ – didn’t have the opportunity to send her texts; he didn’t have the chance to check up on her and how she was doing. Rachel… not a soul in Arcadia Bay had heard from Rachel, and Chloe liked to cling to the tiniest hope that there was some sort of explanation for her radio silence. If Rachel was going to reach out to anyone, it had to be Chloe, so her MIA partner _must_ have some reason for staying on the down-low. That didn't quell the pain caused by her departure, not at all, but with that in mind, and the fact that it’d only been six months... Knowing that there may still be time for something to change, for Rachel to give her some acknowledgement, something… She's far from the worst of the pack.

But Max, on the other hand? Max, showing up by sheer chance up against the bumper of Chloe's truck, with a perfectly functioning cell phone and a full month spent at Blackwell Academy before they'd even crossed paths? Max, who had infinite opportunities to throw Chloe a bone? Maybe a simple “hey, how have you been?” or a “hey, I miss you”, or a “hey, I’m sorry for just up and leaving you like everyone else in your miserable fucking waste of a life when I knew just how much I mean to you and that you have no one else and” –

* * *

“Chloe?”

She jumped at the sudden voice, startled out of her thoughts and feeling her heart pound hard in her chest from surprise. Max, the lady of the hour, here to grace the room with whatever on her mind that was clearly more important than Chloe’s internal brooding.

Max laid across from Chloe in her own bed, head supported by her hands, staring upwards at the ceiling. The slightly nauseating odor of chlorine stuck to her body beneath the smell of fresh laundry - Chloe's, of course. The blue-haired girl let out a sigh, a clear sign of her irritation at the sudden obtrusion to her inner monologue, and just barely jerked her head towards Max to acknowledge her speaking. 

“Yeah?”

“I’m really… glad to be here, you know,” Max started, every syllable coming out slowly and carefully, as if she'd been cautiously selecting each word as it came out of her mouth. “Tonight was amazing. It felt so good to finally be back in action with my best friend.”

_Best friend, huh? Best friend you couldn’t even give half a shit about up until two days ago._

“Yeah.” was all that Chloe offered as a response before rolling her body to as far opposite the bed as she could be. _Of course Max was glad to see Chloe again; glad to have another pal to add to her ever-expanding list of Arcadia Bay buddies to save her ass whenever she needed it._ “Convenient, I’m sure.” Chloe mumbled, barely audible, but just loud enough so Max could hear – Chloe certainly hoped she would.

“Convenient…?” came a weak response from the other side of the bed. Chloe felt a shift of weight atop the mattress; Max must’ve turned onto her side to face the other girl. “What do you mean, Chlo?” And then there came that stupidly endearing tone of voice she’d always bring out when she was worried about Chloe – when she was doting on the older girl when she scrapped a knee hopping a fence, or falling off her skateboard, or face-planting into some dirt, or - 

“ _Nothing_.” Chloe’s second reply was equally as curt as the last. She made a blatant effort to jerk the sheets further over her body, as if covering herself further would somehow shield herself: shield herself from Max and whatever bullshit she'd sugarcoat Chloe with this time, shield herself from those unfairly bright eyes she used as a distinctly unfair advantage, and shield herself from the uncomfortably warm feeling in her chest she got whenever she has to look into them.

The uncomfortably warm feeling that somehow kept convincing Chloe that whatever Max had to say was genuine, was real, _meant_ something. 

Yeah, right.

“Chloe…” This time, a touch accompanied the gentle voice – a soft brush of fingertips against her shoulder. It startled Chloe, caused her to physically recoil, and in that same instant Max jerked her hand back to her own side and slunk back into her side of the bed. A part of Chloe regretted pulling away from the contact, but the anger burning at the front of her mind made sure that feeling didn’t count for much. “Are you… mad at me?”

 _No fucking shit, Sherlock_ , she wanted to say, and when she flipped herself over to look back at Max, the photographer's big blue eyes were even wider than usual and her mouth hung slightly agape in a display of surprise and... hurt? Oh. She totally _did_ just say that out loud.

Max knew fully well an “I’m sorry” wouldn’t cut it – she’d repeated the phrase like a mantra every other second this week, and what more would ceaseless repetition do besides annoy Chloe? Instead, she avoided the other girl's eyes and opted to lay there in an uncomfortable silence for several seconds. They felt like hours.

After some time passed, Max spoke up once more:

“Can we talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. We’ve already covered all the bases at least a dozen times, haven’t we? You left, you didn’t mean to, you were too chickenshit to text, blah, blah, blah – can I go back to sleep now?” As if she’d gotten even a wink that night.

“Yes, _yes_ , there is.” This time, Max’s voice was firmer, more determined. “I _know_ you’re still angry with me, and you have every right to be. I screwed up. Big time.”

“ _Yeah_ , you did. But you have no idea just how much. You can say you fucked up as many times as you want, but you’ll never understand the weight of it – you’ll never understand how _I_ feel, no matter how hard you try.”

Chloe's brutal honesty caught Max off guard, and again, an uncomfortable silence settled upon the two. There were a handful of times during the quiet that Max had parted her lips as if to speak, but every time they did, she instead decided to further consider her speaking up. The last thing she wanted was to say the wrong thing and screw this up even more. Sure, she could rewind, but that felt... cheap. Wrong. She wanted to be able to be honest with Chloe. She wanted to do this right.

“But I want to. And maybe you’re right, maybe I won’t be able to understand the way you want me to. But I’m here now, and I want to do anything I can to make things better between us.”

“And what if you can’t?”

 _Can't_ wasn't something Max had ever even considered; she wouldn't allow herself to.

“I’m still going to put everything I’ve got into trying, Chloe. You’re worth all the effort in the world, and I'm not giving up on you. Never.”

And that, alone, had Chloe at a loss for words herself. Her expression softened slightly – _just_ slightly – and she let out an audible sigh. Her anger had begun its swift dissolve into some kind of heartbreak that made her stomach churn, and even in the dark of her room, she knew Max could see it reflected on her face. She hated feeling things this way, her emotions a never ending roller-coaster ride that refused to break for anything or anyone.

Chloe was the one to speak up next, much to Max’s surprise. “I just don’t see how you’re supposed to expect me to ever be able to believe you when you say you care when you walk away and…” her voice trailed off into a quiet hum. “Five years, Max. Five years. You had my number. You knew you were the only one I had. The day before you left, you said…”

Again, her train of thought went unfinished and she shut her eyes tightly this time. She didn't want to force her mind back to that day. If she did, she had no doubt the night would end with her bawling like a bitch, and she had no intention of going down _that_ path. She'd been far too vulnerable enough for her tastes tonight already.

“But now you’re here, and now you saved my ass once, and now everything is a-OK again, and we’re _back in action_. Now that you need someone to help you figure your new powers out, now that you need some kind of emotional support with all of this crap with Kate, and now that I’m here and I’m easily accessible and useful to you again.”

“Chloe, it’s not like that – “

“It’s not? Really? Because that’s what it seems like to me.”

“I can’t fix everything. Even with my powers, I know I can’t un-do all of what I’ve done to you. I was a shitty friend. A shittier best friend, if you could ever even call me that. I know I don't deserve it. And I’m not gonna keep telling you that I’m sorry, because I know that doesn’t change anything... But like I said, I’m willing to do anything for you now, Chloe. Anything.”

Chloe rolled onto her back, propping herself up onto her elbows and pointedly taking her attention away from Max’s face. “I’d like to believe that.” She reached over to the makeshift nightstand beside her bed, picked up an unfinished joint, and lit it up.

In any other situation, Max would make some comment poking fun at her for her pre-bedtime smoke - but she knew it wasn’t the time. Instead, she watched Chloe in silence. There was nothing she could say that could ever make up for five years of... nothing. That was an unchangeable constant. Nothing she could ever do could erase the permanent damage she caused to her friend – her best friend, the most valuable person in her life – and she knew that. She had to live with that guilt. But she knew that guilt was nothing compared to what Chloe was feeling.

And, now, there really _was_ nothing left between them to say. Anything that came out of Max's mouth would only make things worse. So, as a desperate last-ditch plan, she hesitantly reached a hand out towards Chloe’s free arm, eventually settling it delicately upon her wrist.

At this, Chloe returned her gaze to her friend's face. “What?” she spat, half amused. “You want a drag?” She extended the hand with the lit joint towards her, and Max shook her head _no_ in silent response. Giving a slight shrug and turning her head away again, Chloe took as big a hit as her airways would allow, and held the smoke deeply within her lungs. She closed her eyes again, and for a split second, she felt… okay. Not good. Not bad. Just... okay. Then, she exhaled deeply.

Her eyes followed the patterns the smoke formed in the air as it floated up towards the ceiling, swirling and spreading and twisting in all directions - only to dissipate into nothing. The feeling she got watching it wash away reminded her of something, but she couldn’t quite figure out what. Didn’t matter, anyway.

“Don’t leave me.” Chloe said at last, voice uncharacteristically quiet and almost _pleading_. “Not again.”

At that, Max’s reluctant touch on Chloe’s wrist turned into a grab, and she sat herself up from her resting position to get a good look at the other girl, who still insisted on avoiding eye contact. “Never. I promise. I swear on my life, if I ever even _think_ of it, you can – you can, I don’t know, run over my camera with your truck, and shave my head, and – “

Chloe gave a laugh at that – a quiet sneer of amusement, more-so, and took a final hit. The burning fire of the lit joint trickled its way closer to her fingers, and she felt the familiar burning sensation testing itself against her fingertips. The corners of her mouth tugged upwards, and she ashed the roach in the tray. “Chill, Caulfield. I don’t want to ruin your precious machine. I just want–“ _you_  is what almost came out, until her internal filter kicked in at the perfect time and her sentence ended with “–you to mean it.”

“Of course!” Max chimed, visibly delighted at the slightest hint of Chloe's smirk. God, damn it all, why did Max's face have to light up so much when she was happy? That stupid nerd and her stupid face and her stupid grin and - _ugh_.

During the exchange, Chloe had been moving her hand _so_ very slowly that Max shouldn’t have even noticed it was moving, but somehow their arms turned, and Max’s grip on the back of her wrist became a grip on the front of her wrist and then the front of her palms, and the sides of their fingers brushed, and if Max wasn’t paying attention, she definitely wouldn’t have noticed Chloe adjusting her fingers ever-so-slightly so that their fingers would barely intertwine –

But she noticed, and she smiled just a little bit wider.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavily parallels the events of the morning after the pool scene in episode 3.

Chloe wakes up to the smell of chlorine and sweat with a lingering weed odor beneath it all. It takes her some time to adjust out of her deep sleep; mind still hazy with nightmarish dreams of times passed and times that could become. Feeling abnormally warm, she wiped her hand across her forehead, and it came back damp.

_Those kinds of dreams again, huh?_

She closed her eyes tightly, and inwardly counted downwards from three. When she re-opened them, she put every ounce of her being into bringing herself back into reality.

A loud yawn and a groan signaled that it worked at least somewhat.

The sounds of her own waking elicited a rustle from the other side of the bed; sheets shifting and limbs lazily moving about beneath them. Chloe could make out some vaguely coherent, sleepy-sounding mumbles from the spot next to her, and in response to them, she turned on her side to face Max.

The photographer’s eyelids fluttered open and closed for a bit, an attempt at batting away the overwhelming craving for some more sleep.  

Chloe pointedly averted her gaze from resting directly on Max’s face. Shifting herself onto her back instead, she placed her arms behind and under her head. “Mornin’, Sleeping Maxie.”

Max changed her lying position the same way Chloe had originally; rolling onto her side and lazily resting her head atop her own arm. She sluggishly rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with the sides of her fingers, and let out a peaceful yawn. “Morning,” she replied, hands still working at the sleep that stubbornly refused to go away. “How’d you sleep?”

Chloe, having barely shaken herself into the world of the living, gave a displeased grunt as her only response.

“That good, huh?” Max chuckled, her narrowed eyes settling onto Chloe’s profile. The way Chloe looked in this lighting nearly took her breath away. The girl had hardly woken up a second ago, and yet she was already a perfect moment; just waiting to be memorialized. Max’s hands were positively twitching with the urge to grab her camera.

She had begun to maneuver herself towards the edge of the bed to indulge her addiction when she heard Chloe move again behind her, and she stilled where she was at.

“Hey, Max.” Chloe’s voice was heavy and even, words carrying a peculiar seriousness. “About last night.” With each syllable that came out of Chloe’s mouth, there was a voice in her mind that shouted over and over again about how stupid she sounded already and how every word was going to come out wrong and she should just shut up already -

“Yeah?” Max gave a soft acknowledgement after Chloe had dropped silent for far longer than she’d realized, and adjusted herself to fully face the other girl again.

“It got kinda…” Chloe’s fingers tapped against the fabric of her own shirt; drumming right above her stomach. She needed a physical distraction from the discomfort that overcame her entire being. “No, it got _hella_ weird, pretty much out of nowhere, and it was all because I couldn’t chill out, so... Sorry.”

Max opened her mouth to respond, but Chloe made a point to interject before she could. “Can we just, like, pretend it never happened? I’ll try not to flip again. And if I do, you have every right to tell me off. So... “ She fully sat herself up, supporting her back against the poster-adorned wall behind her. A sigh of humiliation slid past her lips, and she signified her desire to end the conversation with a final, eloquent, “so, yeah”.

It seemed out of nowhere that Max found her lips dry and her body feeling unusually weak. She instinctively wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, finding no relief in the feeling and no sudden perfect response to Chloe out of the the nervous quirk. Instead, she only managed to prolong the moment of stillness.

“Yeah,” she gave, finally. “Okay.”

She didn’t want to forget about the whole thing, but didn’t feel like she had much of a say in the matter. She was already decidedly in the wrong, and didn’t want to do anything to rouse further adverse feelings within Chloe. If she tried to debate her on this, there would be no happy endings for any involved.

So, the two sat together with those as their lastly exchanged words for a long, long while.

* * *

Max surveyed the room with eyes that always seemed to light up with a unique curiosity; she took in every detail she could. Every poster sloppily taped to the wall, every tag and message and drawing that had been hastily scribbled in sharpie, every sign that _Chloe was here, Chloe has been here, Chloe has been here for five years_.

She could stare at this sanctuary of theirs for hours and never grow tired of the feelings and memories they inspired deep within the confines of her mind.

But responsibilities were responsibilities, and she would eventually have to accept the nagging fact that she’d have to get up to get prepared for school - and so, she did.

Her instincts instantly regretted rising up from her absurdly comfortable spot in Chloe’s bed, but the move was a necessary evil. As she stood up and moved across the room, the odor emanating from her still-dampened clothes, tossed aside onto Chloe’s desk chair, proved itself to be more pungent yet.

“Yuck.” Max gave the wet pile of fabric a deep inhale, and let out a half-gag, half-sigh when she turned her head away. “My clothes still reek like a chlorine factory.”

“How about you go dig through my fashion hole?” Chloe perked up, shaking herself out of her stupor and putting on a smile. _Fake it ‘till you make it_ , she'd always thought. “See if you can find something less grody in there.”

Max wordlessly agreed with a nod, meandering her way over to Chloe’s closet before sliding open the doors with care. She paged through a variety of alternatively styled clothes (all of which were, surprisingly, hung up on hangers very neatly - probably Joyce’s work), feeling around for size-tags that matched her own.

Chloe had idly gazed over to where Max was searching, and her heart skipped a beat when she spotted one particularly familiar sight.

“Oh,” she breathed, glassy eyes transfixed on red and black. Red and black in _plaid_ ; one of Rachel’s favorite flannels. A brief ache resonated throughout her chest, but her expression did an excellent job in concealing it. “There you go; you can take something of Rachel’s. She left a bunch of clothes with me.” She hesitates. “I mean, she’s your size, you know.”

“Really?” Max’s brows furrow in worry, and while she does take the hanger off the rack, she only continues to peer down at it. “Are you sure that’s okay? And, besides, I mean,” she toyed with the collar of the garment with her fingertips, then. “I’m not quite sure this is my style.”

“As if you have any style,” Chloe quips, bouncing up from her bed. She landed just close enough to Max so that she could smell the morning in her breath and the chlorine lingering in her hair. “Besides, if you don’t like it, you can always end up rewinding back to your plain t-shirt and generic brand jeans, right?”

“Hey, you suck!” Max snaps back, face settling into the frown-pout she always gives when provoked. Chloe liked it. “I like my clothes.”

Chloe yanks the flannel out of Max’s hand - savors the brief contact between the fabric, the memories it brought rushing back only for an instant - and then presents it to Max extravagantly, arms extended and head bowed. “Behold: your saving grace. You’re welcome. And there’s more in the back. Pick a shirt, some pants; grab whatever that looks like it won’t slide off your bony ass.”

After a solid minute of poking around, Max decided on a tanktop and pair of jeans. There was a brief moment of hesitation before she stepped away from the closet, and Chloe certainly noticed. “I’m gonna get ready for the day,” she declared, turning about on her heels, already striding over to the stack of boxes next to her bed to get to work on her A.M. joint.

Max got the hint that this was when she was supposed to change, and began a quick strip-down to do just that.

Chloe got the hint that this was the point where she had to focus really, really hard on grinding up this bud and pouring it onto the paper and stop her hands from shaking like she was freezing. What was wrong with her? Did she think Max would catch her looking at her?

She wouldn’t. It would be weird.

…

Though, then again, why would it be weird? Teenage girls change together all the time. Locker rooms. That sort of thing. She could turn around and talk to her when she wasn't entirely dressed, it wouldn’t matter. It’s not weird.

But anyway, why would she even want to? She doesn’t. She doesn’t even think about it.

No, now doesn’t count. That’s only a hypothetical.

Yeah, but the fact that you're still --

...

* * *

 

By the time Chloe had sealed her creation with a twist at one end, she’d also managed to quiet down her inner back-and-forth. It was a moment later that she heard the closet doors close and spotted the blur that was Max out of the corner of her eyes. She rose from the ground, slunk herself onto the bed and plopped into a comfortable position.

She looked up to see Max, slowly approaching the other end of her bed, donned in Rachel Amber’s clothes. Her Rachel’s clothes, on Max.

... _Her Max_ , she thought, but instantly felt guilty for even letting those words slip into her thoughts.

She felt even guiltier because she very consciously thought that Max looked damn good in them. She thought she looked great, actually.

The part that made her feel the guiltiest, more than anything, though, was that Chloe really, _really_ wanted to grab her and hold her still and just _kiss_ her already. And she was so, so very angry with herself for even thinking about that. She pushed any and all ideas of that nature aside, and gave Max a clear - completely platonic - elevator sweep with her eyes.

“See? Not so bad after all. You can rock the thrasher look, too. For our next project, let’s get you tatted up and done up with a few piercings.”

“Oh, yeah? I can feel the punk flowing through my veins already.” Max dramatized, striking a decidedly awkward pose in an attempt to imitate a - _frat boy? mosher?_ Chloe couldn’t tell, that was for sure - “Ready for the mosh pit, shaka brah.”

Max had never seen someone’s face drop into such a look of sheer, unbridled disappointment so quickly before.

“Okay. Maybe not.”

The unfortunate attempt at humor had settled the mood for long enough for Chloe to regain her disposition, while Max had diverted her attention to the nearby mirror. She was decidedly pleased with what she saw in her reflection. It wasn’t what she was used to, but it was different, and the way that she caught Chloe looking at her in the reflection was something she could get used to. It’s not like it was Chloe's fault for looking - she noticed Max admiring herself, and got caught up in doing the same. God dammit, why did she have to look back at her? Now she had to say something, and -

“See?” A break in the silence came out easier than Chloe thought it would've. More casual than she'd expected. Perfect. “You need to stop being such a wuss and step out of your shell. I mean, you don’t even use your powers for cool stuff.”

“That’s because they’re not a toy, Chloe,” Max chides. “And plus, we already have. I took you out to that shooting range, didn’t I? I played along with your game.”

“Yeah, but fun and games are only part of it- you gotta really take advantage, start making the most of it! Unless…” She trailed off, making a point to sound particularly suspicious of the other's motives. “You already have,” she accentuated the tease with a wink. “I mean, you could’ve totally macked on me and rewound and I wouldn’t even know…” She only partially hoped it were true.

“Chloe!” Max yelped defensively, turning about to face the girl with arms folded tightly across her own chest. “You know I’m not like that. I wouldn’t do something like that and just rewind so I could know and you couldn’t. How fucked up with that be?”

“Hmm,” Chloe hummed, sitting at the edge of her bed with a finger to her lips. With the way Max was staring at her, that endearingly pissed off expression - she couldn’t help but push further. “Dunno if I believe you. I mean, hello, have you seen all _this_?” She dramatically gestured to herself in her entirety. “If _I_ were you, I’d definitely think about it.”

“Well, _I_ wouldn’t.” Max responded, sounding particularly offended. “I mean - not wouldn’t _think_ about it,” she corrected, then rushed to correct herself again. “Not that I _would_ , I mean, I’m only saying…” She groaned, visibly ashamed of her inability to express her meaning. “I wouldn’t abuse them like that. That's all I'm saying.”

Chloe’s eyes lowered.

“Okay, prove it.”

“What?” Max blinked, confused and flustered.

“Yeah, you heard me, hippie.” While Chloe wasn’t feeling particularly confident, she was certain if she forced it, it’d come through. After all, she was just fucking with her. “Prove it.” Her smug disposition covered up the pounding inside her chest, and she flashed Max a cocky smirk. It sent shivers down the younger girl’s spine.

"How?" 

Chloe Price had no idea what she was doing, no idea where she was going with this, or why she felt the need to push so far with someone like Max, but she did.

“Kiss me now, and don’t rewind.”

Just fucking with her. Just for fun. Just to see if she’d do it.

 _Oh_.

Chloe wasn’t sure what surprised her more: Max’s complete lack in hesitation in quickly closing the distance between the two and sloppily pressing their mouths together, or that she forgot how fucking good contact like this felt.

Unfortunately for her, the feeling was short lived with Max quickly pulling back and bouncing backwards. The doe-eyed girl felt unsure of what to do then, but settled on nodding confidently. “Done and done.”

“Damn, Max,” Chloe sputtered, losing any sense of composition she’d tried so hard to build up. “You’re hardcore. I guess I can text Warren telling him he doesn’t have a chance now, huh? Unless he’s into girl-on-girl action.” She swallowed a hard lump in her throat.

“Pfft,” Max chuckled, and shook her head. She seemed completely unphased, spare for the pink flush that had spread down her face. “You’re a dork. So, breakfast?”

“You go on ahead, Joyce will hook you up.” Chloe said, slinking back onto her bed and showing off a freshly-rolled joint. “I’ve got some medicating I'm required to do before I can deal with other people - except you, naturally."

“Okay, Chlo.” Max’s lips quirked up into the dumbest, cutest smile. “See ya.”

“See ya.”

* * *

The door closed behind Max, and Chloe could  _finally_ let out the overwhelming amount of anxiety that had grown inside her. It all came rushing right out of her chest with a deep, loud exhale. What was she doing? The other night, she’d decided she was done with this shit, and now…

She sat still at the edge of her bed, twirling the still unlit joint between two fingers. Head held in one hand, she stirred silently in feelings of self-loathing and humiliation as she replayed the last few minutes events over, and over, and over in her head - what was she thinking? How could she do any of that? Why was Max so quick to do it? What did that even mean? 

There were a million questions rushing through her head that had left her feeling queasy and in desperate need to light up, like, _now_ -

Until something wonderful happened. A devious, excellent impulse overcame her. It was enough to snap all current worries out of her mind almost immediately, and she would have been thankful if she realized it.

Chloe practically leapt across the bed in search of her cell phone; careless hands grasping through covers for the cheap thing with all the eagerness of a child on Christmas morning. Once located and unlocked, slender fingers tapped against the keypad of her phone at a rapid pace. And, once their mission was complete, she mashed her thumb against the send button a bit too hard.

 

> _hey warren guess what_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't know how far I'll be going with this, but it's to be continued if only for the fact that I _really_ want to elaborate on whatever dialogue Chloe and Warren had while Max was in the kitchen with Joyce in canon.


End file.
